lao@soc.umass.edu

 Compelling intellectual interest, theme, or question:

How does power operate in the world? Particularly in arenas we tend to conceive as economic. (Sorry this is terribly vague but I’ve never really thought about this and am not sure if I have an underlying impetus!)
My research is framed from a world-historical perspective focusing on a longue duree understanding of capitalist modernity wherein the concept of the coloniality of power/knowledge as the main matrix is key. The coloniality of power/knowledge can be represented as the articulation of four regimes of domination/conflict which are: capitalism, racism, patriarchy and imperialism; which implies a rigorously intersectional analysis of power and subjectivity where economy, politics and culture are necessarily intertwined.

Provisional sketch of essay:

To be honest, I am not sure which of my projects I´ll give shape for this proposal. Two ideas come to mind immediately: 1) A counterpoint between Quijano´s Coloniality of Power and Dussel´s Philosophy of Liberation focusing on five questions: theory of power, concept of totality, method, systemic crisis, emancipatory politics; all of this drawing not only from their theoretical formulations, but also from their postures about the current crisis in Venezuela ; 2) an intervention in decolonial politics focusing on two key questions: the state & social movements, drawing from Spinoza´s distinction of potentia (constitutive power) and potestas (institutional power), based on an analysis of theoretical and political debates of contemporary politics in Bolivia and Ecuador. In any case the idea will not simply be investigating these questions in their specific Latin American contexts but in comparative perspective not only with Europe (which now is common) but also with Africa and South Asia.